'24 Personametry First Quadrimester (Jan-April) Work/Life Balance

So we're already in the month of May(!), I've missed my first quarter personal business review - hence I had to do a quadrimester review :-) A 4-month period is commonly referred to as a "quadrimester" link. The term "quadrimester" is derived from the Latin word "quadrimestris," which literally means "four months". However, it's important to note that the term "quadrimester" is not as widely used or recognized as "quarter" for a 3-month period.

2024 vs 2023 Insights and Comparisons

If this is the first time you're seeing my personal metrics, you might want to catch up on how I got here. I invented a term "Personametry" and have been tracking my time in some detail since 2016. Catch up on the history of personametry posts here.

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• Family Time (P5 Family) has increased from 408.64 hours in 2023 to 488.14 hours in 2024, indicating more time spent with family.
• Professional Work (P3 Professional) saw a significant increase from 549.06 hours in 2023 to 825.54 hours in 2024, highlighting a heavier focus on professional activities.
• Individual Activities (P2 Individual) decreased from 339.81 hours in 2023 to 207.58 hours in 2024, suggesting less time spent on personal activities and hobbies.
• Sleep (P0 Life Constraints) saw a slight decrease, from 903.63 hours in 2023 to 857.69 hours in 2024, possibly due to the increased professional workload.
• Muslim Practices (P1 Muslim) also saw a decrease from 501.00 hours in 2023 to 418.30 hours in 2024.
• Time spent with friends (P6 Friend Social) and as a husband (P4 Husband) has also decreased.

These shifts suggest a trend towards more work and family engagement at the expense of personal leisure, sleep, and other social activities. This might reflect a shift in priorities or changes in personal or professional commitments.

This report delivers a comprehensive analysis of personal time allocation for the first four months of 2024, benchmarked against the corresponding period in 2023. The findings are crucial for optimizing time management strategies and ensuring alignment with broader personal and professional goals.

*Key Highlights*

1. Workload Increase: There has been a significant surge in professional engagement, with work hours increasing by 50.3% from 549.06 hours in 2023 to 825.54 hours in 2024. This increase indicates a robust uptake in professional activities, potentially reflecting expanded responsibilities or new projects.
2. Health and Fitness: A concerning decline in health and fitness activities was noted, with a 70% reduction in time allocated to these crucial activities. The decrease from 64 hours in 2023 to 19 hours in 2024 signals a need for immediate realignment of priorities to safeguard physical well-being.
3. Self-Learning and Development: Time invested in self-learning through books and other media saw a dramatic drop of 75%, decreasing from 69 hours in 2023 to 17 hours in 2024. This reduction could hinder ongoing personal development and professional competitiveness.
4. Sleep and Rest: Sleep-life balance saw a modest decrease of 5.1%, with total hours reducing from 903.63 to 857.69. While not as stark as other categories, this reduction will continue to be monitored to prevent potential impacts on health and productivity.
5. Personal Life Engagement: Time spent on broader personal life activities decreased by 14.7%, indicating potential overreach of professional commitments into personal time.
6. Husband Time: Notably, time spent in the role of a husband decreased by 40%, from 134 hours in 2023 to 80 hours in 2024. As every wise person knows, a happy wife is indeed a key to a happy life, suggesting that revisiting this balance could be crucial, lest we find ourselves investing significantly in couch time!

*Strategic Implications and Forward-Looking Statements*

The data from early 2024 underscores a pivot towards intensified professional commitments, which, while beneficial for career progression, has led to significant sacrifices in health, fitness, and personal development. To address this, strategic initiatives will focus on reinstating a balanced allocation of time across all domains to support sustained health, continuous learning, and overall life satisfaction.

Moving forward, we will implement routine evaluations and adjustments to our time management strategy. This will ensure that our commitments and daily activities are optimally aligned with our stated goals of maintaining a healthy work-life balance, fostering continuous personal growth, and ensuring physical well-being.

*Conclusion*

As we continue through 2024, our objective remains clear: to effectively manage our time to enhance our quality of life and fulfill our professional ambitions without compromising our health and personal development. This report serves as a foundation for making informed decisions that will drive improvements in our daily routines and long-term strategies.

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My Reflections, what happened? I had a good thing going in 2023!

That's what I thought. As I shared in my previous analyses, I was intentional about getting my working hours back under control after I made a major career change in 2021. My work hours in 2021 increasingly dramatically compared to 2020/19 was expected because I made a major move, switched domains, needed to learn again and also joined at a lower level that what I was previously used to. I had spent 2022 and 2023 adapting and settling into my way of doing things - as you can see from this picture below. 

2021 stands out as the peak year, compared to all other years, for the months January - April. Thankfully I haven't breached 2021 thresholds but I'm getting close. You can see that in 2022 and 2023, my work hours trended downwards by design. Then the red in 2024, shows a dramatic uptick. This is because my scope of role changed late 2023. I was given more responsibility, more ownership and hence more challenges and opportunities. Heck, it's 2021 all over again, almost like a new job! This year, compared to last year, the start of the year has just been hectic. I didn't need my time tracking data to tell me what's obvious alright, but the data is still valuable because I can see clearly the negative impact of my work hours having on my other streams of life: personally as an individual as well as my role as a husband. Just check these metrics out below.

My personal streams are all tending red and going downhill. My lifestyle has been interrupted somewhat in 2024, I've experienced poor health and overall well-being. I have not maintained any regimen when it comes to health and fitness. I haven't went for a run since January and I don't recall cycling this year. My health in general has declined somewhat. In fact, earlier this year, in late March, I was admitted to accidents & emergency, was inflicted with kidney stones (came from left field). This is the second time in 3 years that I spent time in hospital (the first was in 2021 when I did major surgery, interestingly 2021 was the year my work hours peaked). Now, maybe this was just a matter of time coming - or maybe - it might have been the work hours and stress - who knows, the body works in mysterious ways. We're learning more about how the body responds to stresses (micro stresses, micro aggressions, etc.) as a coping mechanism for mental health and other stressors like overworking potentially leading to burnout. So my work hours is something I have to take care of:

Even though my profession has been given priority over me being a husband, I still can't ignore the fact that the downward trend needs to stabilize. I have been working hard all these years to keep my personas in harmony, so not making the time to nurture my relationship with my wife, can only do more harm than good. I have, on more than one occasion, experienced the challenges that result when my work hours eclipse time spent with loved ones. I am already getting feedback in this area, so in Q2, May-June, I have to realise a path-to-green here.

With all that's going on, time for Social also declined. It's not a priority right now but something to consider for Q3/Q4 this year as well:

Apart from work hours, spending time with my family as one group, has been positive so far. I'm being more intentional on more family outings this year, as well as being there for my kids as they're progressing from the teens to young adults: